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Unless you’ve been living under a rock lately in the Salesforce community, you’ve heard about the new Lightning Experience (“LEX”) due out in Winter ’16! (queue elated yet half-scared applause and amazement)

Also, unless you’ve been living under a rock or have not read my previous posts, I’m a pretty rabid fan of Salesforce Trailhead as well – and they have come through with bright shiny colors on delivering FOUR NEW TRAILS all around migrating, administering, and developing around the initial release of LEX. If you are a developer, administrator, or even end-user – there are trails for you!

My biggest questions have been around “what works and what doesn’t so I can accurately advise my clients”. I’m slowly digesting the new Winter ’16 pre-release notes that dropped at the end of last week, but as I’ve said before – Trailhead content is written in a way to cut right to the quick; give me contextually-appropriate major chunks of information and test me to ensure I comprehended it right. There are many times where a Trailhead challenge has given me information in JUST SLIGHTLY a different light that (full pun intended) sets off the light bulb in my brain.

Without further ado, I wanted to introduce you to the four new Trailhead trails and my take on each. You’ll see some overlap between some of the trails – some modules and challenges cross trails to ensure maximum contextual assistance.

Yes! There are things that work and don’t work – this is “version 1” ya know…

How to enable LEX for discovery and testing

Navigating setup and new LEX-exclusive enhancements

Customizing the LEX UI and a re-introduction to Actions

Bye-bye URL hacks!

Bye-bye Javascript buttons!

Bye-bye raw URL navigation!

Setting yourself up for a successful deployment

When: Do this one first.

Why: Unless your users are a group of supermen and superwomen that can handle any blip that comes their way, LEX is going to be a tough rollout – specifically in user training and “Salesforce Classic” feature parity. Start your education here.

Why: LEX is the #1 largest UI-based change in over a decade. The underlying administration concepts and foundational abilities aren’t changing, but how you and your users access them are. You need to learn the gaps that do exist in LEX v1 and how to appropriately mitigate or delay each area so you aren’t left high and dry.

NOTE! This trail was originally designed for brand new admins who are walking into a Winter ’16 org with LEX enabled, but EVERYONE can learn from this module.

Trail 3: “Developer Trail – Lightning Experience”

Who: Developers primarily, but Admins can learn a LOT from this as well

What: Five modules walk you through topics such as:

What is LEX and is it right for your organization?

Yes! There are things that work and don’t work – this is “version 1” ya know…

How to enable LEX for discovery and testing

UI framework and approach

How LEX impacts Visualforce overall

How LEX impacts ISVs, Packaging, and the AppExchange

How to tell if your 3rd party packages are ready for LEX

What else is changing with development tools?

How to use Visualforce within the LEX framework

Overall expectations

Navigation

Styling

What NOT to do in LEX

How to use Lightning Components with the LEX framework

Components and Attributes

Standard and Force.com Components

Events and JavaScript handling

Lightning Design System (LDS)

SURPRISE!

Salesforce has released a Salesforce bootstrap framework

How to use it

How NOT to use it…

When: Do this one third overall, or if you’re a dev – do it first just for LDS.

Why: Because you’re a developer and have questions about how your knowledge will convert into the LEX world – flat out. Salesforce does not have any delusions that LEX will be perfect on “day 1”, nor do they expect that everyone will be able to transition over even within the next few releases. What they do expect is that you will take the lessons learned here and start making smart design decisions so that when you are ready to move, you can.

When: This is a great follow-up to the other trails, or a must for your users as part of your rollout strategy – even if you have seasoned veteran users.

Why: One thing that admins and devs often skip over is the user experience – or how users will be introduced and trained on the system. We’re so often mired in the details of fields, triggers, and workflow that we completely space that someone will have to advance their Opportunity through the new Sales Path in LEX. This module is KEY for getting some good ol’ fashioned context. =)

IN SUMMARY! (Yes, I’m finally done!)

LEX is BIG. Not like DF keynote/Benioff’s shoes big – like impacting your career big.

Trailhead = awesome. I can’t pick a better word for it.

Salesforce has gifted you a fast-track with Trailhead. Use it.

If you want a Winter ’16 LEX org before your sandbox window – you have to do these modules

Pre-release org activation is queued and prioritized based on your Trailhead progress

Sound off on Twitter! Mention me (@andyboettcher) when you complete a badge! I want to hear from all of you!